Looking Around

I guess it is about time here.

My how time flies, I must be having fun. I have managed to let this slide by about 45 days...give or take. That is a life time in some circumstances... hmmm, about 45 lifetimes in the circumstances around being incarnated as a fruit fly, for example. Here, it is just a blip of time since I was sitting here doing this. I would think I would be here more often, but I am not. And, it rolls around, usually, to having a blank space here and not to many minutes before something else is going on... stuff like that. I do wish it was because I was putting words down for something else, but it isn't. At least, not yet, it isn't.

November is right about here, again. We've managed one more spin around the sun since last NaNoWriMo... I think I got about 1,000 words down before my standards got too high for more words to come out. I am not too worried, I am writing... sort of... I am daily at my computer putting computer code and scripts into form for work. Yes, it takes up a very similar part of the brain, so the last thing I want to look at on any give day is my computer screen... again. Yes, I could follow my wife's example and write everything long hand first... and no, my brain just doesn't want to be that linear so much. Here it is Sunday, the TV is off... so I have a moment... and some words come out.

Oh back to the standards crack in the last paragraph. Yesterday, my wife and I went to hear Kathleen Norris speak here in Atlanta. One of the quotes she shared with us was from William Stafford (and I hope I got the spelling right... I guess I could Google the man... but you can, too... so go look it up if you want)... supposedly he said somewhere something along the lines of, "I never get writer's block, when words are not coming out, I just lower my standards." I have to admit that does hit a note of clarity for me... I often can't find "just the right word" so I never get started. And, over and over I see the wisdom give that I should simply get words on the paper, then edit later. It seems like such a waste of time if it isn't perfect to start with... but even when it is perfect to start with, I usually end up with a very different set of words after editing. All that work for not much return, and I usually have a huge amount of work with NO return... nothing to show for an hour of staring at the page... or in this case, the computer screen.

A similar principle seems to govern the computer script writing... get something down... then play with it. With things saved and written, it, at least, looks like I have done something... or so my boss says. I am getting better at it, too. If I spent 40 hours a week here, I would get better at this, too. I know... I could set goals. Goals indicate some sort of deadline, and like Douglas Adams, I "like deadlines, I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." ( or cooler words that that effect). So, you might think I would like to set goals and deadlines for my self... and you would be wrong. I have no respect for them... at all. I set them, the go find ( if I have to make some up) 10 other things to do that seem way more important, and then can serve as decent excuses.

Then, that moment comes when I have a few minutes, I check this e-mail account, and just have to start putting some thoughts on the screen. They don't have to be important, or meaningful, or, even, true... they just have to come out. I get into that mind set of grace or focus or flow (it goes by many names and I can still get burned at the stake or stoned using the wrong one in the wrong company) the words come. The thoughts are there. My fingers can't keep up... I am doing it. I don't have to show anyone... I don't want to show anyone else... I have just spent some time writing... sometimes here, sometimes in my journal, sometimes in my notebook. The pressure is off... now where was that last piece of cold pizza from last week?